Crappy Leads or Wrong Focus?

My Sales person asked me to help her understand why the leads she gets are so lousy. This is actually a great question and one that almost always leads back to a lack of understanding on the salesperson’s (or company’s) lack of focus on who is a real prospect.

Salespeople often mistakenly view their product or service as being applicable to a broader audience than it really is. Seldom is the issue that the salesperson isn’t thinking broadly enough. The issue typically comes down to the salesperson’s, or company’s, thinking isn’t focused. They haven’t defined who their market is. Consequently, they end up with a lead generation program that brings in more “trash” than anything else does. Sales people, especially those who do networking are thinking that everyone they meet is a prospective client. That within itself is so untrue!

You have to weed through most people, who themselves are just after the sell, and find the one’s who can truly benefit from the services or product offered. Sales people need to look at what the business is, what their needs are, would the service benefit them and is it affordable for their budget. As I have found, just because you believe someone should be able to afford your services doesn’t necessarily mean they can. The image they show you is not always the truth. No one wants potential clients to know they are strapped for money.

In order to generate a large number of high quality leads–no matter your lead generation method–you must be able to concentrate your efforts on the areas where you’re most likely to find quality prospects and then use methods that will effectively reach that target audience. Coming out trying to reach too broad an audience dilutes your efforts; and using methods that are ineffective for your target will simply prove to waste your time, effort and investment.

Consider where you are looking for leads, if you are always looking at networking groups, then chose wisely. Many networking groups have BP’s in them. BP you ask… Broke People. They are only at the group hoping to sign someone up to their MLM or sell their products. I personally don’t have a problem with that, however they are not going to be the one’s you need to go to. If you remember some of my other posts talking about networking groups, you will remember that I have said over and over that networking groups are about building relationships not selling your product or services. BP’s have contacts that could be beneficial to you so building a relationship with them is the value.

Always look for the value of the relationship when you meet someone, you never know who they know.

Have a great weekend and when your sales person is complaining about the crappy leads, have them focus on who they are talking to and where they are finding them.

One comment on “Crappy Leads or Wrong Focus?”

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